Titles are Hard

Brain is mush. Want more sleep.

With family visiting from out of town, one usually feels obligated to spend time with them, even if it means sleep deprivation. Yesterday we had a family barbecue for my mom’s side of the family at our house and amazingly were able to fit everyone. Today there are plans for my husband to take them around Portland and show them the city which sadly I won’t be able to join them as I have to work. Stupid work.

Brain is mush.

Want more sleep.

A Time to Clean

There are times when you just want to sit and do absolutely nothing. Today is that day, and it just isn’t going to happen.

Coming home after an out of town trip should be relaxing. However, coming home and needing to clean the house is another feeling altogether. Alas, the time has come to clean. We are having a family barbecue at our house for the local family and friends to visit with my brother and his family while they are in town, so cleaning must be done. And pictures to put into frames, and groceries to buy, and food to make…

Neighbors and Pyrotechnics

Our neighbor across the street likes fireworks… a lot. I mean alotalotalotalotalot.

We are fortunate enough to live in an area where there is usually a pretty good Fourth of July Independence Day show just on our street. So we decided to invite people over to spend the day at our house then for those who were still here when darkness began to fall, we moved our chairs out to the driveway and watched a magnificent display. It was amazing and we only occasionally were hit with random shells. It had gotten a little chilly, so it was also a great excuse to pull out my quilts and show everyone before we wrapped them over our laps and legs to watch the show.

The Day Before

Preparing for an Independence Day barbecue is usually pretty simple. Well, simple, of course, if you aren’t slobs like us.

There are floors to vacuum, dishes to do and put away, bathrooms to clean, litter boxes to change, and the backyard needs, well, some attention. Oh, and the grill is in pieces thanks to my husband deciding that now would be a good time to tear it apart… right before having people come over for a barbecue. Brilliant! Okay, so it really won’t take much to get everything together for tomorrow, but still… IT’S TOMORROW!!!

Fortunately I’ve got most of the menu figured out. I’m thawing out a pork roast for pulled pork sandwiches, which needs to go into the slow cooker soon to get its proper thirty hour cook time in. The accompanying coleslaw will take mere minutes to put together. I’m making my famous (yet haven’t baked in nearly five years) chocolate chip cookies that take three days to complete (hence, the nearly five year hiatus.) And of course we will hopefully have a functioning grill for people to use.

For the drinks, we asked everyone to bring their own preference, but I’m still going to make some sun tea. Also, I’ve got three bottles of hard apple cider a former coworker made and gave me back in January that I can’t wait to drink.

It will be fantastic if it all comes together. However, reality is something will get lost in the shuffle. The most important part is to enjoy the company you are spending the time with, not whether the driveway was swept or the floors mopped to a spotless perfection.

Rotisserie Chicken

Round and round and round she goes. Well, after a bit of nudging and a good whack, anyway.

Our grill also has a rotisserie function. Simply slide the bird on to the stick thingie and shove it into the doohickey and turn in on and magically it starts to spin. Technical terms for these particular devices are foreign to me. The grill is a hand-me-down and surprisingly still works even though it looks like it is falling apart. I don’t know if it could take another move.

Anyway, we had gorgeous I-don’t-want-to-cook-inside weather yesterday and I took advantage of that by thawing out a whole chicken I bought weeks ago and put in the freezer just for a day like this. After patting the chicken dry with a paper towel, I rubbed some herbed butter (with some fresh sage, rosemary, oregano and thyme from the garden, along with salt and pepper) under the skin and inside the cavity. After carefully inserting the rotisserie spit and claw things and tightening the clamps, I put it on the preheated grill, plugged in the spinner thing and watched as it did nothing. I detached the chicken, whacked the device against the edge of the grill and the turning mechanism started moving again. I placed a broiler pan directly underneath to not only prevent flare-ups, but also to fill with beer. We had a bottle of an IPA that neither of us planned on drinking, so we poured it into the pan along with a glass of water and kept filling it with more water for the hour and ten minutes we had it on the grill.

While the chicken was resting, I microwaved some potatoes and put a salad together using leftover salad from the church potluck earlier in the day that was looking for a home other than the trash. There were so many flavors in the salad, I figured nothing more than a little extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar would be needed. So after twenty minutes of letting the chicken rest, it was time to cut into it and find out if she was still moist or if I had overcooked the bird. You see, I am notorious for undercooking whole birds. I just bad at it. So for this one, I let it cook for probably a good fifteen minutes longer than it needed to. Hopefully the beer and water sauna it was cooking in made its way into the meat. It did. And it was amazing. Now I have a use for an India Pale Ale next time one randomly ends up in our fridge!

Summer Cooking

During the summer it seems my desire to turn the oven on, especially in a house without air conditioning, is put on hold. After all, it is barbecue season.

Of course, here in the Northwest very few of us put our grills away for the winter. I mean, our weather is mild enough to barbecue all year long and rain really doesn’t deter us from being outside. But in the summer months our Weber gets a lot more attention, probably due to the lack of a pan or two to clean afterwards. Then again, that is also why I keep it up and running all year.

Grilled trout (if my partner went fishing that day or the day before), chicken or steak are the usual meaty things, and if asparagus is in the house that will get grilled too. Most of the time a simple garden salad and good bread finish out the meal, but occasionally a baked potato is in order. Of course, by baked I mean microwaved. What did the homemaker do before microwaves?

Nary a stove or oven is turned on in our home unless absolutely necessary when the temperature is expected to be in the upper 70s or above. I’m not looking forward to the August baking for cake orders I’ve taken from friends and family, as August and September here are the hottest months of the year. Oh, the things I do for those I love!

The best part about summer is that so many fruits and vegetables are in season that cooking anything might not even be required. But grilling many of these fruits and vegetables along with the rest of your meal will bring out a lot of hidden flavors, especially peaches and bell peppers. So tell your stove to take the summer off and enjoy what the grill can do for you.